If your site is loading slow, it can be due to a number of causes. Usually the cause is due to the way that the site is scripted. However, identifying these exact causes can be tricky. With some of the tools below, you will be able to accurately identify the main culprits.

One possible cause of why a site loads slow for you can be the speed of your own connection. A good test to eliminate that is to ensure that the issue exists from another network (i.e. a different address). Once you have confirmed that the issue exists for other connections, you can begin analyzing and addressing the issue(s).

There are two perspectives to analyze the site from, locally and globally. Analyzing the site using a tool built into your browser will test the site's load speed from your connection (locally). However, if you analyze the site from a website, it will be testing from their servers (i.e. globally).

There are three popular browser tools which may be useful depending on the browser you are using:

Google Chrome has a tool built into the main release. It can be accessed by visiting the site, right clicking and selecting "Inspect Element". The best way to use the tool is to go to the Audits tab and select the option to "Reload Page and Audit on Load".

Mozilla Firefox uses an add-on tool named FireBug which can be found at http://getfirebug.com/ The best way to use Firebug to analyze site loading speed (it offers many additional tools) is to open it up from the button in the top right corner, select the tab named Net and then reload the site you are trying to analyze.

Apple also offer comprehensive developer tools for Safari as seen here: http://www.apple.com/safari/features.html#developer You can access the developer tools in Safari by turning on the Develop menu in the Advanced pane of Safari preferences. In there you will find the Web Inspector and Timeline Pane tools.

There are a number of good websites offering analyses on website load speeds from their own servers. Some of the best tools are at the following links: